Readers searching for something to sweep them up and out to sea need look no further than the author’sJess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins is spellbinding.

Readers searching for something to sweep them up and out to sea need look no further than the author’s latest, and I can promise you the plot is every bit as delicious and enticing as the lush cover photo suggests.

Fluctuating between the making of the Liz Taylor and Richard Burton classic “Cleopatra” in Italy and present-day Los Angeles, Walter introduces a cast of unforgettable characters. Though I was innately more interested in the scenes from 1962 than the modern plot, both were crucial to Walter’s story of love lost and found — and honor redeemed. Pasquale is a hopelessly endearing character — someone you want to hug and help. Naive, lovely actress Dee entrances him immediately, but it’s hard to tell if it’s Dee that effortlessly captures his heart . . . or the idea of what she could finally bring to his colorless life.

You know how sometimes you’re reading, grow bored and just skim a bunch of paragraphs . . . only to realize you’ve missed absolutely nothing? I hate that. And Beautiful Ruins is the opposite of that reading experience. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it masterpiece of many intricate stories, and the setting made me feel like I could step in and share a glass of wine with the motley Italian crew. Even Michael Deane, a selfish buffoon who royally screws up others’ lives, manages to somehow seem likeable.

The book’s story-within-a-story quality completely sucked me in, too. Beyond the fate of the principle characters, we’re given the movie treatment of a heartwarming tale of . . . cannibalism. (Yes: cannibalism.) And somehow it still sounded like a moving, captivating film I might want to see. Honestly.

Readers craving a vibrant story offering glimpses at old Hollywood, the Italian seaside, the effects of war on the innocent and the bonds (and sacrifices) of love need only grab Beautiful Ruins. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year and one that certainly deserves a spot in your bookcase....more

Stephanie Perkins’ Anna and the French Kiss really is as awesome as everyone claims. Like the colorful macarons Perkins describes, I couldn’t help butStephanie Perkins’ Anna and the French Kiss really is as awesome as everyone claims. Like the colorful macarons Perkins describes, I couldn’t help but devour entire passages of this book whole. It’s funny, entertaining, witty, realistic and oh, so romantic. So romantic. I’m telling you now, I was swooning from here to the Atlantic with this novel clutched to my chest.

Etienne is so my new book crush.

You know when your best friend falls for a guy and talks about him so much that you start to think, “Hey, you know what? You’re right. That dude is awesome.” That’s totally Anna and me, BFFs: in love with the same man. It’s impossible not to fall in love with Etienne St. Clair, so I didn’t even try to stop myself. It would have been like putting out a house fire with a bottle of water. Smokin’.

Ahem.

So yes. This book. This book. I loved Anna and her occasionally clueless self. She felt like a real teen, a real friend — a young woman who was both intelligent and adorable, eager to please her family but struggling under the weight of her parents’ divorce. She was so linked to her little brother, Sean, that it tugged at my heartstrings. And even though she had all sorts of Big Stuff going on, it didn’t bring her down. She just kept moving forward, learning and experiencing as she went.

Anna and St. Clair’s friends were all well-drawn and believable, too. There when you needed them, but with their own difficulties to figure out. Again: realistic. I think that’s what I loved so much about this book: it was like I could have stepped right through the pages and sat with them at lunch. It made me — a 25-year-old — feel like I belonged at SOAP, too.

France came alive under Perkins’ fingertips, and I haven’t wanted to visit this bad since finishing French Milk last year. There is so much to love here — I could go on and on. But rather than encourage you to keep reading a ridiculously long review, just go get Anna and the French Kiss. Perkins has crafted a young adult book that readers of all ages will enjoy, relate to and, like me, want to hug after the final page has closed.

Moody. Atmospheric. Unforgettable. In this stunning debut from author Peter Geye, a father and son are reconciled -- and laid open, bare, along the frMoody. Atmospheric. Unforgettable. In this stunning debut from author Peter Geye, a father and son are reconciled -- and laid open, bare, along the frozen shores of Lake Superior in Minnesota.

Peter Geye’s Safe From The Sea offers just what its lovely, cold cover suggests: a turbulent tale of a father’s love; a depiction of the emotional and physical landscapes that divide us from one another, then reunite us once more. Though emotionally difficult, it’s a book I savored and found over all too quickly.

From the moment I was introduced to Noah, I felt a strong affinity for him. It was obvious the years had taken their toll -- just as they had on his father, a man I was determined to dislike but ultimately could not. Olaf -- reticent; headstrong; self-sufficient -- isn’t accustomed to asking anyone for anything. But in reaching his hand out to Noah, and doing it on his own terms, I felt I could accept and love him. Just like his children do.

In telling the story of the Torr family, Geye chooses each word carefully. Never once did the pacing falter; never once was I weighed down with detail, with too much superfluous information. We’re told what it is we need to know. Often, this irks me — I mean, how soft was a pillow? How bright was the light? How warm was a kiss, or comforting an embrace? But you know, in reading Safe From The Sea, it never occurred to me to think about what was missing. All I could do was feel grateful for all I was given.

It’s been a long time since I found a book that so moved me -- a book I couldn’t help talking about with friends and coworkers. I didn’t expect to fall so in love with a novel set in a freezing landscape about a disjointed family -- but that’s precisely what happened. I loved that it was so different from anything else I’ve read in recent months. I loved that I fell in love with the characters . . . even the difficult ones.

For readers interested in family sagas, maritime histories (boats! high seas!) or profound looks at fatherhood and love, look no further than Safe From The Sea. My heart won’t be the same again.

I started Margaret Dilloway’s How To Be An American Housewife just before bed last week, distracted by my busy day and unable to calm my worried mindI started Margaret Dilloway’s How To Be An American Housewife just before bed last week, distracted by my busy day and unable to calm my worried mind enough to sleep. From the opening sentence, I was surprised at how quickly I sunk into this beautiful, lyrical story — and how enchanted with Dilloway’s world I became. I didn’t put the book down again until 2 a.m. — and only when my eyes were literally shutting.

In this novel centering around identity, growth, healing and motherhood, our protagonists are Shoko and Suiko, or “Sue.” The Japanese wife of a former American GI, Shoko has become American through assimilation. She chose to marry Charlie, a shy redheaded military man, and left her native Japan after the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima left her culture, land and family devastated. Sue is Shoko and Charlie’s divorced American daughter, a lovely woman with a 12-year-old daughter, Helena, who understands her mother little and their Japanese heritage even less.

Now aging and facing serious surgery, Shoko is looking back at the life she left in the Japanese countryside — and the family that disowned her when she married an American. Taro, Shoko’s brother, was particularly venomous and couldn’t — or wouldn’t — see the way out Shoko was forced to take. After her father chose her future husband out of a photo line-up of American suitors, Shoko said goodbye to her native country . . . and hello to a world even more foreign than the frightening one she abandoned. But toward the end of her life, did Shoko make the right choices? Could she have changed things for herself, for Charlie, for their son Mike — or for Sue?

From the novel’s first words to its rapid conclusion, I was enchanted with everything about Dilloway’s story. In the cover blurb, author Jamie Ford calls the story “tender and captivating” — a description I second whole-heartedly. I can think of little I disliked about Housewife, except that, for me, it ended far too soon.

Alternating between Shoko’s memories of her early life and teenage years across the Pacific and the present in California, Dilloway seamlessly moves us from time to the next. Shoko herself tells us her story, providing background and details in flawless language. We know that Shoko has faced discrimination in forms: especially after she arrived in the U.S. We know, too, that her English language skills are limited and her accent hard to understand. But as a narrator, Shoko is intelligent, witty, deft; she’s wonderful. The details Dilloway shares strike the impeccably perfect balance between telling and showing.

Oh, there’s so much to discuss in this fabulous book: the nature of Charlie and Shoko’s marriage; Mike’s difficulties and the nature of his reticence; the Japanese caste system that forced Shoko to shy away from a man she once loved; the effects of the atomic bombs on Japanese society, and the way the war changed everything. But I don’t want to give away the story or overshare, because I went into this novel mostly blind — and I loved that. What appealed to me most, from reading a description on Goodreads, was the cover. I’m obsessed with cherry blossoms — or sakura – and usually savor stories of immigrants and foreign cultures.

This novel was exquisite — one of the finest I’ve read this year — and I highly, highly recommend it to lovers of literary fiction, historical fiction and plain ol’ fine storytelling.

Every now and then, a novel like Aidan Donnelley Rowley’s Life After Yes finds its way into my life, and it’s moments when I’m reading a book like thiEvery now and then, a novel like Aidan Donnelley Rowley’s Life After Yes finds its way into my life, and it’s moments when I’m reading a book like this — where I feel like my own face is reflected back at me — that I experience what I can only call literary magic.

Maybe it’s that Quinn is a mere two years older than me, grappling with mortality and love and “prudence,” with safety. Maybe it’s that the book is set and firmly ensconced in New York City — and I started it on the train ride back from a long weekend there. Maybe it’s that, as I was reading last night, I had my own “Sage” napping next to me with one arm firmly around my back. And I felt happy. And safe.

Whatever it was, I’ll say this loud and proud: Life After Yes spoke to me. Shouted at me, really, in a way that I haven’t experienced with a novel in a long, long time. For all her moral issues, uncertainties, flaws, contradictions and need for direction, Quinn — or Prudence, as some know her — felt like a real person. Human. Blood. She felt like me.

I sped through this novel in record time, unwilling to put it down, and found myself dog-earing passage after passage about happiness, love, moving forward. Rowley’s prose was deft and poignant, always striking the perfect balance between telling and showing. Nothing is worse than a book that’s all thought and no action, a story where I’m told to care about the characters simply because it’s easier for the author.

This wasn’t that book.

What could have become a sad, maudlin tale — especially given Quinn’s emotional vulernability — became, instead, a story of perseverance, of unexpected moments of joy, of choosing happiness instead of just waiting for it to wash over you. Life After Yes also served as a big “screw you!” to conventional ideas about what our lives “should” be — filled with prudence, balance, careful thinking — and not being afraid to take the giant leaps. Those are the ones that matter.

Do I sound silly, over-the-top and way too excited about this book? Probably. But that’s just because I feel silly, over-the-top and excited just thinking about it. It’s rare to find a novel that seems to stretch its thin, cool fingers into the cockles of your heart and pull out every little thought and doubt you have in there, but Aidan Donnelley Rowley did that. For me.

Fans of women’s fiction, family dynamics, contemporary fiction, just plain good books — pick this one up. I think she’ll do that for you, too....more

In the span of 450 pages of Kathryn Stockett’s incredible The Help, I alternated between giggling, snorting, wanting to a punch a wall, choking back tIn the span of 450 pages of Kathryn Stockett’s incredible The Help, I alternated between giggling, snorting, wanting to a punch a wall, choking back tears and -- finally -- letting those tears fall. The novel broke my heart and then healed it, and I feel like a different person -- a different reader -- after finishing.

With fully-drawn characters and the uniquely Southern setting, I couldn’t read this novel fast enough. Stockett does a masterful job of building suspense and anxiety while simultaneously keeping us engrossed in the plot. The bravery exhibited by nearly everyone in the story was inspiring and, like the Grinch, I felt my heart swelling way beyond its normal size.

For me, The Help absolutely lived up to the hype -- and I felt so much while reading, which is the hallmark of an amazing book. I really didn’t want it to end and wished I could live forever with Minny, Aibileen and Skeeter, the latter of whom I identified with so much. But I wanted more for them. And, more than anything, I wanted them to have happy lives.

An important novel that tackles Major Issues in a dark period of American history yet still manages to be entertaining, lively, affecting and unbelievably moving? The Help is truly a rare find, and it earns my absolute highest recommendation....more

It’s rare to find a novel that so succeeds in reaching right into your chest and yanking your heart out, but Craig Thompson’s Blankets did just that.

TIt’s rare to find a novel that so succeeds in reaching right into your chest and yanking your heart out, but Craig Thompson’s Blankets did just that.

This graphic novel is an autobiographical look at Thompson’s young life, beginning with his early days growing up in a strict Christian household in Wisconsin and sharing a bed with his little brother Phil to entering high school as an awkward adolescent, eventually arriving at church camp -- where he meets the lovely and troubled Raina, the young woman with whom he falls hopelessly in love. Blankets is a story of family, pain, suffering, abuse, religion, love -- and moving beyond those things to form your own identity.

And it spoke to me -- and stuck with me. I borrowed this monster of a novel (600+ pages) from the library, rushing over on my lunch break to grab my copy. By 10 p.m. that evening, after many fits and starts with regular life getting in the way, I’d closed the final page. But that doesn’t mean I’ll ever forget what I saw.

Thompson’s look at love is stunning; his portrayal of his relationship with Raina encompasses so many of the sensations and fears that accompany falling in love for the first time. Walking through this story visually -- as opposed to a traditional book -- was a different but enlightening experience. I related so much to the tumult of emotions and found myself tearing up constantly.

For those who don’t traditionally read or enjoy graphic novels: trust me, I’ve been in your ranks for a very long time. And I won’t say that Blankets will completely convert you to the graphic novel genre, because I can’t say that I prefer it to a traditional novel (or ever will). But Thompson’s story is too gorgeous to be missed....more